Page 24

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

emma

I t had been the longest effing Monday-est Monday ever.

I was glad it was over. Sully had gone home all healed up as though nothing had happened to him at all, and the rest of the day had been filled with check-ups.

For the first time since I’d opened my own practice, the day had been a slog to get through, and I wasn’t excited about tomorrow. Light jazz played through the ceiling speakers in my office at the rear of the building. My thoughts kept drifting to Logan and Six-Mile Pack…

To what I was…

To my new abilities…

I’d slept since then, so it all seemed like a dream, a nightmare, none of it real.

What was I going to do? Prophecies weren’t real, but turning into an animal hadn’t been real to me last week either.

Maybe Dr. Wise would have some information to help make sense of things.

I only had to get through this weekend and get myself back out to Six-Mile.

Shannon and Riley were out front, finishing the end-of-day cleanup, and I was compiling a report I’d meant to run last Friday. The numbers wouldn’t hold still on the screen, though, and none of the pertinent information made enough sense for me to place a restock order today.

My cell chimed, and I fished it out of the rear pocket of my pants.

Sheila: Sorry to bother you, but Logan made me.

Me: Sully?

Sheila: Sully’s fine, but Logan wants to know if you’re okay.

I scowled at the screen. Now he was using Sheila to get at me. I wasn’t even going to play that game, so I slid my phone back into my rear pocket. Logan might be the alpha, but he wasn’t my alpha, and I’d never agreed to participate in pack behavior.

My actions were none of his business.

Riley skipped into the room, already in her normal clothes with her red hair piled on top of her head. “You almost ready?”

“Is Shannon ready?” I asked, blinking rapidly to clear the blur in my eyes.

“Almost,” she said. “Ten minutes.”

I wasn’t ready to be alone for the day, so I’d offered to take Shannon and Riley to dinner. After Shannon had cleared it with her babysitter and Riley had checked with her boyfriend, they’d both agreed.

“I’m going to get my stuff.” Riley hurried out.

“Can you lock the front?” I called.

“Sure thing!”

Ten minutes later, we collected at the rear exit, closest to the small, fenced-in employee parking area.

I pressed the button on my key chain, and the new wrought-iron gate slid open.

The fence and the gate might have been out-of-place expenses in a small-town setting, but the practice where I had interned had a designated parking area, and I’d had it in my head as an “I made it” goal since then.

“Everybody have everything?” I asked.

Riley nodded as we stepped out of the building.

“Yeah. I’ve got everything too.” Shannon tucked her dark hair behind her ear. “Where we headed for dinner?”

“Oh, I don’t care. Where do you two want to go?” I asked, checking for my keys, my phone, and my laptop. I always left my purse in the car, so I pulled the door closed and locked it. “We can meet there so we can leave when we want.”

“We could go to Vixen’s,” Riley said. She elbowed me. “You like that place.”

I scrunched my nose. “Not in the mood tonight.” Not with the chance of running into Logan. “Anything else sound good?”

“Laredo’s?” Shannon offered. “I can get some to-go orders to take home. ”

“Mexican sounds good,” Riley agreed. “Meet you there.” She skipped to her car and started it. Her music blared a second later.

“Sounds good.” I chuckled.

Gah. Sometimes, that woman seemed younger than she was. I wasn’t sure I’d ever skipped in my lifetime, but her carefreeness soothed the weight pressing in on me.

My parking space was only a few steps from the door, and I tugged the driver’s door open.

Shannon’s phone rang, and she pressed it to her ear before she waved and slipped into her car. The voice transferred to her Bluetooth as I closed my door. I tapped Laredo’s into the GPS to make sure it was the restaurant I thought it was.

A flash of movement caught my eye to the left of the parking area, in the alley, and I frowned. Had that been a coyote? A bird? My skin prickled, and my throat dried.

Riley started to back out of her space, but she stopped and frowned toward the alley. Her mouth opened, and she pointed, horror marring her features.

When I turned, a man came from around the corner and stepped into the parking area.

He had a baseball cap pulled low, so the visor obscured his face.

He marched to the rear door of my building and tried the handle.

He hadn’t shown up naked, so I didn’t know if he was a shifter or not, but something about him…

Reeked!

I jumped out of my car, waving my arms like he was an animal I needed to run off. “Hey, what are you doing? Get out of here! ”

“Emma, look out!” Riley shrieked.

From behind me, a thick, dark fabric bag descended over my head, obscuring my vision and yanking me back into the chest of another man and off my feet. Arms clamped around me, squeezing so tightly that I couldn’t take a deep breath.

I squealed and scratched at the opening of the bag, but he tightened it against my throat, and I couldn’t claw it off. Kicking my legs didn’t dislodge the grip. He dragged me backward, grunting and growling in my ear. A vehicle parked somewhere close.

“Get her inside,” one of them barked.

“Come on, you bitch. There’s a bounty on your head,” he muttered.

“Get them!” The guy yanked me hard. “You know he said no witnesses.”

Footsteps scuffled across the gravel around me, and car doors opened and closed. Something clattered against the ground—a phone maybe—and a muffled scream followed… from inside a car. Riley and Shannon’s fear scented the air.

“No! Don’t help me. Get out of here!” I shouted.

I twisted and squirmed, trying to find the chink in the hold of the man who had me. Instead, he dragged me across the graveled area toward the rumble of an engine. No matter how much I fought, his hold didn’t loosen.

“Riley! Call the cops!” Shannon yelled. “There’s more coming!”

Shit.

“No! No cops! Don’t call them. ”

Riley shrilled something I couldn’t understand from beneath the fabric, or maybe she was inside her car. If I didn’t do something quickly, they were going to call the police.

That was when I heard footsteps from several more scrambling into the parking area. Using my shifter senses, I could almost see the scene in the parking area.

Training would have made all the difference in the world. No way I could keep on as though I didn’t need to learn anything about what I could do now.

“Holy god,” Shannon exclaimed. “Is he… is he… changing?”

“He’s turning into a wolf!” That had been Riley screamed at the top of her lungs.

My chest heaved as I sucked at the air, trying to drag as much oxygen into my lungs as possible through the bag. “Get…” Gasp . “Out…” Gasp . “Of…” Gasp . “Here…”

Shifter magic blew through the parking area, smoothing over my shivering skin and bringing a rush through me.

I threw my head back, slamming my skull into my captor’s nose.

The crunch brought an anguished yell from my would-be kidnapper and a grin to my face.

The shift wasn’t happening to the guy who held me. It was another one.

I bent forward, easily lifting him off the ground. The magic in the air had enhanced my abilities. If I could summon my own shift…

A bear… A bear… My body becomes a bear.

My limbs contorted, jerking this way and seized the other way, bending in terrifying ways.

A burst of wind circled me and punched down in an explosion of colors.

The fabric of my clothing ripped as it had the first night, falling like leaves around my new form, and my cell phone clattered to the ground, shattering the screen.

Then I was towering above the man who still held the bag on my snout and nearly straddled my back.

A raspy bear chuckle worked up through me.

Oh, now you did it, you asshole.

A shiver worked through me, shaking my fur in a movement which easily dislodged the man from back, and I snorted the thick, black pillowcase off my nuzzle. As my attacker slid down my side, he morphed into a mountain lion, and all I could see was the beast who had attacked me in the woods.

Instead of fear, power surged in my veins. My giant paw landed square in his side, sending him sailing into the brick exterior of my practice, and he lay still—not dead but unconscious.

Then I whirled to find the other shifters. Where had they gone? I had to find them, but a bear couldn’t hide. What could hide and run quickly?

Shannon and Riley cowered in their vehicles, staring up at me, unable to drag their eyes away. Fuck. This was going to be a mess to clean up after, but that was for after, if we made it to after . I had to catch the other shifters.

Fox… Fox… I contorted again and dropped to all fours, darting between the vehicles and turning my head from side to side, scenting the air. Then I darted through the bars on the wrought-iron fence into the alley .

There!

The wolf peered around a dumpster, his amber eyes trying to determine what was happening in the parking area.

Other shifters hid in other spots. Their scents filled my mind, but first, I yipped as though I knew the wolf, and his snout came out a little farther, and his ears swiveled.

He had been hiding from a bear, not a fox, and he didn’t seem to understand I could shift into more than one kind of animal.

What if I tried a form I hadn’t yet…

My short reddish legs jerked and lengthened into black furred feline legs, and my cougar haunches were ready to pounce. Instead of a puffy tail, the appendage was long, sleek, and stretched out to help keep my balance.

The wolf whined and darted away, and I bolted after, feeling my instincts take over.

One of my long strides overtook two of his, and I sailed through the air to land on his back before he reached the end of the alley.

He howled in pain as I brought my jaw down on the back of his neck.

Crunching his bones wasn’t my intention, only incapacitating him, and he dropped to his belly in front of a snarling raccoon.

My paw sent the raccoon sprawling, and a left hook knocked the wolf into unconsciousness.

Two more down…